I was in Vegas a while back, during a convention of gospel singers who were evidently all black, so maybe it was a convention of black gospel singers or maybe all gospel singers are black… okay, here’s what I know: there was a convention, it was about gospel singing, and everyone I saw that I knew was attending the convention was black.
This convention was the final confirmation for me of something which always seemed like it might be true, but I just didn’t have enough data to be absolutely sure: black folks dressup better than any other ethnic group. I’m not even talking about style, since that isn’t always true and that’s entirely subjective anyway. It’s about… polish. Sheen. Crispitude. Cleanliness. Flawlessly ironed fabrics, perfect creases, ideal fit, free of a single speck of lint or dirt, perfect manicures, skin glowing, every hair in place, perfumed, shoes mirror-like, etc. They kinda look like living, breathing retouched photos, with any and every tiny imperfection removed.
Not only did I have a very large sampling to work with, over several days of events, I also had the control group of everyone else at the casino, people who were also dressing up for various things. White, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern… we all looked like a buncha shlubs next to the blacks.
Is this a debate, or “Mundane Stuff I Must Share”?
Some black people are dapper, some are slobs. Many are in between. My God, it’s as if they have all kinds of different personalities, tastes, and styles.
Were any of these control group folks members of other church choirs? If not, why you gotta assume it’s the blackness, not the choirness, that leads to the dapperness?
The OP makes the common logical fallacy of the biased sample– an especially egregious error considering she states exlicitly that she thinks her sample size is adequate:
When Black Gospel singers dress up they do it way better than anyone else. Therefore all Black people, when they dress up, do it way better than anyone else.
Perhaps the OP should stick to politics. Oh wait, maybe that’s not such a good idea either…
Stoid were you drinking when you posted this? You realize this wasn’t a random thought floating through your head and that you actually posted this because you thought this was of import?
I’m admittedly kinda’ new here, but couldn’t the phrase “random thought floating through your head” and the concept of questioning “importance” apply to 98.6% of ALL doper threads?
Then there’s the additional factor of drinking while posting… :dubious:
Geeze Stoid, you should know by now any generalization about a race or sex or age or whatever, positive or not, true or not, is like blood in the water for a pile-on.
One common trait of African-American culture regardless of socioeconomic status places a premium on looking good and flossin’.
There are individuals who succeed more often and better than others, and other blacks who can care less, and we’re the ones who get talked about about at church and family reunions.
I just came back from the Ecological Society of America meeting, and lemme tell you, white folks (who comprised probably 95% of the meeting) sure know how to dress down. If you don’t own at least one pair of Tevas, you are not allowed to register for the meeting. And you must wear your Tevas every day. Especially with socks and at formal occassions.
Except the black ecologists (all what? seven of us?). We know how to look shawp.
Seriously, though, Stoid’s observation mirrors mine to a certain extent. And as someone who can’t give a crap about ironing clothes, likes her shoes worn-down and dirty, and prefers wild and free hair, I had a hard time growing up. As a child, I remember wanting to go to a “white” church as opposed to my parents’ “black” church because I believed I could get away with more fashion faux pas in the former than the later. There were many tears on Sunday mornings because I felt like I could never measure up to my mother’s standard of “nice looking”, which always seemed to require that I give up my individuality and own standards.
I do not know where this comes from, but I can wager a few guesses.
I did a survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, and let me tell you, when white men run a company, they do it WAY better than anyone else. Those MBE and WBE businesses are run by a bunch shlubs, in comparison.
The convention was just the final confirmation of a phenomenon I had observed throughout my life privately among people I knew well, along with randome others here and there. The perfection was so relentless among all these people gathered together in one place I just decided it must be a cultural thing.
And yes, Revtim, I do know that any generalization is chum in the water. Which just makes me laugh, even being the the good 'ol bleeding heart libby that I am.
Would you mind doing so? I’d be curious to read them.
Incidently, one of my college buddies was black and she spent a lot of time agonizing over whether to attend the Black Baptist Church downtown, or the White Evangelical Free Church just two blocks off-campus. (She tended to overthink some of her decisions, particularly with respect to what effect her choices might have on other people- people who I doubted ever noticed her). One of her issues was that the Black church congregation did dress up a lot for church, which made her concerned about vanity.
Oh, come on. The black church ladies do dress up! It’s not a silly overgeneralization, it’s a cultural observation. I promise you if you drive past your average great big black church around noontime on Sunday you’ll see more elaborate hats than you see all week put together, and that they’ll be the exact same color as the outfit and probably shoes, and that you’ll quite possibly have to look long and hard to find a pair of bare, unstockinged legs. Ditto the moms at a black college graduation. Have we become so afraid of being un-PC that we can’t notice differences in our cultures anymore? Because that’s sad.
